Did Theater Critics Deepen the Great Depression?: Echoes

Assailing those responsible for the continuing Great Depression was a very serious business in the early 1930s. Wall Street financiers, commodity speculators, bankers foreclosing on homes, employers cutting wages and jobs -- all weathered fierce public criticism and bitter jokes at their expense.

In March 1932, Representative William Sirovich, a Democrat of New York, identified new miscreants: drama critics. The New York Times reported that Sirovich, chairman of the Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights Committee, charged that the theater business was on the rocks due to “malicious criticism” by critics posing as “know-it-alls.”